“He’s a fine fellow that!” said the rector. “—­But, bless me!” he added, turning to his curate, “how things change!  If you had told me a year ago, the day would come when I should call an atheist a fine fellow, I should almost have thought you must be one yourself!  Yet here I am saying it—­and never in my life so much in earnest to be a Christian!  How is it, Wingfold, my boy?”

“He who has the spirit of his Master, will speak the truth even of his Master’s enemies,” answered the curate.  “To this he is driven if he does not go willingly, for he knows his Master loves his enemies.  If you see Faber a fine fellow, you say so, just as the Lord would, and try the more to save him.  A man who loves and serves his neighbor, let him speak ever so many words against the Son of Man, is not sinning against the Holy Ghost.  He is still open to the sacred influence—­the virtue which is ever going forth from God to heal.  It is the man who in the name of religion opposes that which he sees to be good, who is in danger of eternal sin.”

“Come, come, Wingfold! whatever you do, don’t mis-quote,” said the rector.

“I don’t say it is the right reading,” returned the curate, “but I can hardly be convicted of misquoting, so long as it is that of the two oldest manuscripts we have.”

“You always have the better of me,” answered the rector.  “But tell me—­are not the atheists of the present day a better sort of fellows than those we used to hear of when we were young?”

“I do think so.  But, as one who believes with his whole soul, and strives with his whole will, I attribute their betterness to the growing influences of God upon the race through them that have believed.  And I am certain of this, that, whatever they are, it needs but time and continued unbelief to bring them down to any level from whatever height.  They will either repent, or fall back into the worst things, believing no more in their fellow-man and the duty they owe him—­of which they now rightly make so much, and yet not half enough—­than they do in God and His Christ.  But I do not believe half the bad things Christians have said and written of atheists.  Indeed I do not believe the greater number of those they have called such, were atheists at all.  I suspect that worse dishonesty, and greater injustice, are to be found among the champions, lay and cleric, of religious Opinion, than in any other class.  If God were such a One as many of those who would fancy themselves His apostles, the universe would be but a huge hell.  Look at certain of the so-called religious newspapers, for instance.  Religious!  Their tongue is set on fire of hell.  It may be said that they are mere money-speculations; but what makes them pay?  Who buys them?  To please whom do they write?  Do not many buy them who are now and then themselves disgusted with them?  Why do they not refuse to touch the unclean things?  Instead of keeping the commandment, ’that he who loveth God love his brother also,’ these, the prime channels of Satanic influence in the Church, powerfully teach, that He that loveth God must abuse his brother—­or he shall be himself abused.”